With Turkey's military presence in northern Syria and its support of militant groups in Idlib, it was to be expected that the Syrian Army offensive in the region would be postponed until a compromise was reached between Erdogan and Assad's allies, as I explained earlier. Russian president Vladimir Putin held talks with his Turkish counterpart Erdogan, for the third time in less than a month, in Sochi on September 17th. They agreed to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib; later, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed to journalists there would not be a large military operation in the province.

According to Russian diplomatic sources who spoke with Al-Watan newspaper, the Russian-Turkish agreement will be implemented in three stages:

The first stage will go into effect by mid October to create a 15 to 20 km weapons-free zone along the contact line between militant groups and government forces. All radical groups, including ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra/Al Qaeda will have toleavethis zone, which will be patrolled jointly by Russian and Turkish military units.

In the second stage the heavy weapons will be collected from the region until November 10 and the militants will leave civilian areas.

In the third stage, lasting to the end of this year, state institutions will resume activities in Idlib.

Notice that for the completion of all three stages, the cooperation of militant groups is necessary. This is the point that may result in the partial or complete collapse of the demilitarization efforts - but that is not necessarily a failure.

South Frontreports that pro-militant sources claim that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the coalition affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda in Syria) and some other groups, including the Islamic Turkistan Party (composed of die-hard Uyghur Muslims from China) have rejected the agreement. (It was originally reported that Jaish al-Izza, a Free Syria Army group, had also rejected it, but now that appears to be incorrect). Furthermore, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation warned after the Putin-Erdogan meeting that the White Helmets and members of Al-Nusra were still preparing a false-flag chemical attack to blame the Assad government. This is not surprising; after all, Syria is dealing with jihadi factions - literally terrorists - not with a mix of "moderate rebels" and a few bad apples as the Western narrative insists. By definition, terrorists are uncooperative to say the least, especially when asked to give up their weapons and let the state do its job.

If the information on the reaction of the terrorist groups is correct, the Turkey-sponsored and FSA-affiliated Jabhat al-Wataniya al-Tahrir (aka the National Front for Liberation) and Jaish al-Izza would be the only parties potentially willing to go along with the plan. In fact, Putin and Erdogan never expected or intended to make deals with groupseveryone recognizes as radical - particularly with Al-Nusra, which was singled-out by Putin at the Sochi press conference, while Erdogan vowed to "clear these territories of radical elements". Therefore, in the context of Idlib, when we hear Russia or Turkey discuss 'moderate rebels', they mean Turkish proxies.

Before the latest Sochi summit, Erdogan demanded a political solution to the situation in Syria, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, when in reality he had three objectives:

To salvage the forces in the area loyal to Turkey.

To minimize the amount of refugees and jihadists crossing the border into Turkey.

To retain as much influence on the future of Northern Syria as he could.

Clearly, Putin understood that Turkey would not simply leave the region of its own accord, and thus the Idlib offensive would have risked a dangerous direct confrontation between states. So he agreed to proceed via the 'political route', fully aware that Turkey would then have to commit to join the fight against groups officially recognized as terrorists - even those Turkey directly or indirectly supported in the past - while pulling the reins on its proxies or even turning its guns against those who rebelled. Furthermore, Turkey takes another step towards Russia, Iran and Syria, and away from NATO and its machinations in the Middle East. Ultimately, the crucial point of the agreement is not how many militants will give up their weapons or not, but that Turkey is now on board with the liberators of Syria. One could say that Putin 'gently coaxed' Erdogan into doing the right thing.

Lose The Match, Knock Over The Board

Of course, there is another advantage to calling off a major offensive in Idlib: It makes it harder - though not impossible - for Western countries and their allies to protest, threaten, and retaliate against some imaginary war crime, and for terrorists to stage an attack on civilians, inviting such retaliation.

Map of the incident on September 17 in Syria provided by the Russian defense ministry.

Some geopolitical players bent on war seem to have taken the news hard enough to make significant mistakes. There are a number of observers - including an advisor to Erdogan - who believe that Israel's latest insanely criminal stunt, which resulted in the downing of a Russian Il-20 military plane and the death of 15 Russian servicemen, was a response to the Sochi agreement reached a few hours earlier. Indeed, there are barely any coincidences in politics, although we must not forget that on the same day (Monday, September 17th) the Russian Ministry of Defense presented evidence countering the Dutch report on the MH17 flight tragedy over Ukraine - a non-negligible event that may have inspired Machiavellian Israeli minds to distract the public from such data.

The tragedy of the Russian Il-20 was the product of typical duplicitous, cowardly Israeli military 'strategy'. While on an illegal and unprovoked bombing operation against government targets in Syria - of which the Russian MOD was notified with less than a minute's notice - four Israeli F-16 fighter jets flying at low altitude "created a dangerous situation for other aircraft and vessels in the region... The Israeli pilots used the Russian plane as cover and set it up to be targeted by the Syrian air defense forces. As a consequence, the Il-20, which has radar cross-section much larger than the F-16, was shot down by an S-200 system missile," an MOD statement said. The reaction of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu was bitter:

"The blame for the downing of the Russian plane and the deaths of its crew members lies squarely on the Israeli side," the Russian minister said. "The actions of the Israeli military were not in keeping with the spirit of the Russian-Israeli partnership, so we reserve the right to respond."

Evidently, the Israelis were intentionally looking to cause trouble for the Russian military. However, judging by the amount of time they took to officially respond to an angry Russia, it appears they miscalculated and did not expect that a Russian aircraft would be lost, nor did they expect Russia blame them. This was Israel's big mistake: Russia is likely to forcefully make difficult or even obstruct any future Israeli operations in or above Syria.Putin's words about boosting the safety of Russian personnel in Syria and taking "steps that everyone will notice" point in that direction.

A bad situation was made worse when an arrogant Israeli response finally came. No apologies were offered; all Russia got was an expression of "sorrow" and much blaming of third parties:

To add insult to injury, the Israelis disputed the Russian version of the facts. Somebody is lying here, and I doubt it is the aggrieved party:

There is another interesting fact to this story, that seems to be rapidly slipping out of media reports. The French Navy's frigate "Auvergne" was in the region at the time, and according to the Russian MOD, several missile launches were detected from that ship. At what were those missiles aimed? What role did the French Navy play in Monday night's bombing of Syria and/or the loss of the Russian Il-20?

With diplomatic skill, Putin again managed to solve the 'Turkey problem' in Syria - at least for now. Unfortunately, it will be much harder to fix the 'Israel/NATO problem'. The discourse and behavior of neocons and zionists shows that they have no interest whatsoever in a stable, prosperous Syria - or in a peaceful Middle East. While commenting on US politics, Putin once observed that is "difficult to have a dialogue with people who confuse Austria and Australia". We could add that it is even harder to reason with people who confuse war with peace and truth with lies.

Andrés Perezalonso has been a contributing editor for Signs of the Times in both its English and Spanish versions since 2007. He holds a PhD in Politics, an MA in International Studies, a first degree in Communication, and has a professional background in Media Analysis. He thinks that understanding world events is not unlike detective work - paying attention to often ignored details and connections, and thinking outside of the box. He was born and raised in Mexico and currently resides in Europe.

Reader Comments

Erdo keeps digging a bigger hole for himself... and maybe that's a good thing for his ego, even in death? As for Israel, this is the norm or 'par for the course'... again, seemingly not recognizing the sacrifice that awaits them.... too busy prepping their own altar for the ceremony... tunnel vision... and Erdo too, seems to still think he can survive this idiocy.

apeguia True... or at least gives Erdo another chance to think twice about his New Ottoman Empire fantasies... and Putin has to work with the pieces at play on the chessboard... so, not much choice here.... another angle is the oil/gas pipelines that other Southern Euro countries are showing interest in again as the EU leadership weakens... sort of the same situation for most players... as the Western Empire crumbles.... China still thinks it can take the helm of the old ship, not realizing that history doesn't work that way... that ship has to sink, though China does seem to want to keep it afloat and not really change it much... which seems to be Erdo's way of thinking as well... still unable to make a real move, ego keeps getting in his way... he really is his own worst enemy.

Good article. Your comment about the French made me look further. Here is a post from Fort Russ on the downing of the Russian plane. Seems like another attempt at a False Flag that has so far backfired on I FUKUS.

Tsakoug I didn't say that Turkey's land grab put it on the right side of history. Clearly Turkey had no business stepping into Syria and supporting terrorist groups against Assad. But now with the Sochi agreement it has an opportunity to undo the damage to some extent - that would be getting on the right side of history. I thought I was clear!